BlueGrassRoots

Kentucky's courts have prepared forms for landlords to help them prosecute evictions efficiently. They call landlords and their attorneys when they don't show up to court. Yet, when the Kentucky Equal Justice Center and other organizations ask for the Courts to provide necessary, important information to Kentuckians facing eviction, the Courts—top to bottom—say they can't because they have to be "impartial." I just totally reject that. Links: * Update on our federal lawsuit (https://www.kyequaljustice.org/post/jefferson-county-eviction-due-process-lawsuit) challenging the constitutionality of the Jefferson District Court's eviction processes (contains links to briefing filed to date) * KEJC's letter to the Kentucky Supreme Court (https://5f301f23-ec36-41bd-8ffd-0c207e64d461.usrfiles.com/ugd/5f301f_ca2100a02dbf48f8b8e55cb4e0304a57.pdf) and Administrative Office of the Courts begging them to provide more information to people facing eviction * AOC's Response (https://5f301f23-ec36-41bd-8ffd-0c207e64d461.usrfiles.com/ugd/5f301f_28d79c6c974a4dfa81e3ff80b3d0a44c.pdf) saying they couldn't provide any additional info because that would be "impartial" * Shinkle v. Turner (https://casetext.com/case/shinkle-v-turner#p420): Kentucky Supreme Court case recognizing that the laws governing evictions in Kentucky are “at least a hundred years old and arguably [are] now ill-suited to the reality of modem landlord-tenant relations” and that these laws are "difficult to apply in the modem court system." Shinkle v. Turner, 496 S.W.3d 418, 420 (Ky. 2016).

KEJC has been using Community.Lawyer to build legal apps during this pandemic. One of them, HomerenterDeclaration.org, has been used by more than 10,000 people to protect themselves from eviction during this pandemic. Check out the case study at Community.Lawyer. (https://community.lawyer/kejc-eviction). Here's the app (http://HomerenterDeclaration.org).

Thanks to LEO Weekly for publishing this essay. Please check out the links in the show notes! Especially: please help us spread the word about HomerenterDeclaration.org (http://homerenterdeclaration.org). People can't get the eviction protections if they don't know they need to take action.

The audio version of an essay I published on April 23 about our public health and economic crises.

Hi. I'm Ben. I used to do some podcasts. Now I have one again. I'm not quite sure why I have a podcast again, but that's not stopping me from being pretty excited about it.